The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has outlined the nation's goals of consolidating and strengthening the primary status of agriculture and accelerating re-organization and restructuring of industry for the next five years.

According to the Proposal of the CPC Central Committee for Formulating the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-2005) for National Economic and Social Development released in Beijing Wednesday, strengthening the position of agriculture is an important part of economic restructuring and the basis for maintaining economic growth and social stability.

The proposal said that great importance should be attached to preserving and expanding the capacity of grain production, building stable bases of grain production, developing a grain security system that is compatible with the specific conditions of China and the requirements of a socialist market economy and guaranteeing the essential balance between demand and supply of grain.

The proposal called for the country to be fully aware of the importance and hardship of the development of agriculture, always put the development of agriculture as the top priority in economic growth and guarantee sustainable, stable development of agriculture on the basis of improving overall quality and efficiency.

According to the proposal, every possible means should be adopted to increase the income of farmers because this concerns both the development of agriculture and rural areas and the development of the economy as a whole.

It called for greater efforts to be made in restructuring the agricultural sector, actively expanding the sources for the increase of farmers' income, stepping up support and protection of the farming sector, effectively slashing the burdens of farmers and securing the sustainable increase of the income of farmers.

The proposal pointed out that the restructuring of agriculture and the rural economy should be market-oriented, based on scientific and technological advances and persistent in exploring a new broadness and depth of production growth.

It said that great efforts should be made to push forward the development of a universal service system in rural areas, with the supply of technological and information services as the focal point.

Support should be given to the innovation and spread of farming technologies so as to make advanced, practical technologies accessible to more farmer's, according to the proposal.

The establishment of the systems of market information about farm produce, food quarantine and quality standards should be accelerated to guide the farmers to turn out quality farm produces in line with market demand.

The proposal said that deepening rural reform is the fundamental measure to preserve and promote the motivation of farmers. It said that the development of a legal framework guaranteeing the land system in rural areas should be accelerated so as to maintain the dual management system that encompasses unified and independent management and is based on household contract.

It said that on the basis of pilot reforms in certain areas, the reform of replacing arbitrary fees imposed by administrative authorities with taxes should be accelerated in the rural areas. At the same time, the reform of government structure at township level should be carried out in an active and proper way.

With industrialization as a major way for modernization of agriculture, the country should encourage and support the enterprises that process and sell farm produce to give farmers access to the market so as to develop a system of profit-sharing and risk diversification.